Blackberry Phones

Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry 7 smartphones are seeing strong initial sales among businesses looking to upgrade from older BlackBerry smartphones, however consumer sales have been weak according to Canaccord Genuity. In a research note, Canaccord analysts Mike Walkley and Matt Ramsay found during channel checks that upgrade sales of BlackBerry 7 devices in North America were quite strong with enterprise customers in August. Specifically, Verizon Wireless saw strong Bold 9930 upgrade sales among its substantial enterprise customer base, while AT&T and Sprint saw mixed sales. T-Mobile’s $300 Bold 9900 has not been selling well according to Canaccord’s checks. Read on for more.

“Our August checks indicated strong initial Bold 9930 sales to the large installed Verizon enterprise base, but most store managers indicated limited sales to consumer customers that continue to choose the iPhone or Android smartphones versus BlackBerry,” the analysts wrote. “With the Bold 9900 the first compelling new BlackBerry in nearly two years for Verizon customers, we were encouraged as our checks indicated Verizon’s large BlackBerry enterprise base appears to have strong demand for the first BlackBerry OS 7 device on Verizon’s network. However, our more consumer-centric retail store checks indicated smartphone consumers continue to overwhelmingly choose the iPhone 4 or new Android smartphones versus the $250 Bold 9900.”

Walkley and Ramsay continue, noting that initial sales of AT&T’s $50 Torch 9810 have been strong among consumers, though margins are likely tight considering the original Torch 9800′s $200 price tag. Canaccord believes RIM was forced to match the price of AT&T’s iPhone 3GS and HTC Status in order to attract consumers to the new Torch. Enterprise interest in the device has been lacking according to the firm’s checks, possibly due to businesses waiting for AT&T to launch the new Bold.

“Our checks at T-Mobile indicated weak initial sales for the Bold 9900, as Android smartphones maintain their top share at this carrier,” the note continues. “We believe the $300 price for this new BB 0S 7 device also contributed to the soft initial sales, and we anticipate T-Mobile will need to lower the price to match its competitors. Finally, our checks at Sprint indicated limited initial supply of Bold 9930 ($200) and the Torch 9850 ($150). While many stores sold out of initial quantities, most stores indicated very limited units at launch (<10 on average per store). As such, Sprint store managers indicated Android smartphones continue to sell much better than BlackBerry.” BGR has independently confirmed with multiple sources that Sprint retailers have received extremely limited inventory of RIM’s new BlackBerry 7 smartphones thus far.

Sprint on Monday announced that it will launch Research In Motion’s latest CDMA smartphones — the BlackBerry Bold 9930 and the BlackBerry Torch 9850 — on Sunday, August 21st. The Bold 9930 is RIM’s brand new touch-and-type flagship smartphone, which launched on rival carrier Verizon Wireless this morning at the same $250 price point. The Torch 9850 is an affordable full touchscreen smartphone that picks up where RIM’s Storm lineup left off. Both smartphones feature Research In Motion’s latest BlackBerry 7 OS and are part of the largest global launch in RIM’s storied history. Sprint’s full press release follows below.

BlackBerry Bold 9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9850
Available for Sprint Customers on Aug. 21

Powered by the next-generation BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry® 7, a performance-driven operating system designed to deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 and BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 will go on sale in Sprint Stores, Sprint Business Sales, Telesales at 1-800-SPRINT1 and online at www.sprint.com beginning on Sunday, Aug. 21.

BlackBerry Bold 9930

BlackBerry Bold 9930 boasts the thinnest design and widest QWERTY on a BlackBerry smartphone for $249.99 (excluding taxes) with a new line or eligible upgrade and two-year service agreement.

At just 10.5mm thick, the BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone ever. It features a 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen display, the widest QWERTY keyboard available on a BlackBerry smartphone and a trackpad for easy navigation. BlackBerry Bold 9930 also offers Near Field Communications (NFC) support for a secure exchange of information between NFC-enabled devices over a very short distance.

BlackBerry Torch 9850

BlackBerry Torch9850, the first all-touch BlackBerry smartphone for Sprint customers, will cost $149.99 (excluding taxes) with a new line or eligible upgrade and two-year service agreement, after $50 mail-in rebate via reward card1.

The sleek BlackBerry Torch 9850 smartphone features a spectacular, new 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen display, the largest ever on a BlackBerry smartphone, and trackpad for easy navigation.

Both smarpthones feature Liquid Graphics™ technology, a key new feature powered by BlackBerry 7 to deliver incredibly fast, smooth performance and a highly responsive touchscreen experience. They also offer 1.2GHz processors, 5MP cameras and are World Phone capable.

Key features of both BlackBerry Bold 9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9850 include:

BlackBerry® service with access to up to 10 supported business and personal email accounts, plus BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support for corporate email installations
BlackBerry® Playbook™ support with BlackBerry Bridge™ (Bridge is available as a free download on BlackBerry App World)
Augmented Reality using the built-in compass (magnetometer) to support augmented reality applications

DataViz Docs To Go® Premium suite preloaded, for editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from anywhere
BlackBerry App World™, the official app store for BlackBerry smartphones offering customization, fun and productivity

BlackBerry 7

BlackBerry 7 introduces a next-generation BlackBerry browser with a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience that is up to 40 percent faster than BlackBerry® 6 based smartphones and up to 100 percent faster than BlackBerry® 5 based smartphones2.

BlackBerry 7 also integrates BlackBerry® Balance™, which separates personal content from corporate content, giving users the freedom and flexibility to use the smartphone for personal email, Facebook®, Twitter®, multimedia, games and other apps, while satisfying the need for corporate data to be highly secure and manageable. BlackBerry Balance works in conjunction with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0.3, which provides a number of unique IT policy controls, such as wiping only corporate data or blocking work-related content and apps from being copied or forwarded to personal contacts.

BlackBerry Bold 9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9850 require activation on one of Sprint’s Everything Data plans plus a required $10 Premium Data add-on charge for smartphones. Sprint’s Everything Data plan with Any Mobile, AnytimeSM includes unlimited web, texting and calling to and from any mobile in America while on the Sprint Network, starting at just $69.99 per month plus required $10 Premium Data add-on charge – a savings of $39.99 per month versus Verizon’s comparable plan with unlimited talk, text and 2GB web or $9.99 per month versus Verizon’s 450-minute plan with unlimited text and 2GB web. (Pricing excludes taxes and surcharges.)

BlackBerry Bold 9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9850 also offer World Phone capability for international travel to nearly anywhere in the world. Sprint customers have the power to make or receive phone calls in more than 200 countries and access to BlackBerry® data services, including email, apps and web browsing in nearly 155 countries. Customers can check the Sprint Worldwide Coverage and Rates page to check coverage in the specific location they plan to travel and find voice, text, and data rates. They also have the option of using a third-party SIM for international voice and data services.

Via

Want to know how much you’ll be forking out if you plan to get the one of the next generation BlackBerry devices? Thanks to the folks at BGR who managed to get their hands on an upcoming Sprint flier, we now have the prices for the phones when they go on sale later this year.

The BlackBerry Bold 9930 will be priced at $249.99, while the BlackBerry Torch 9850 will be $149.99 – both with a 2-year contract on Sprint. While $150 for the Torch seems nice, paying an additional hundred for the Bold seems pretty steep, even though it is RIM’s flagship device after all. But a price drop in the coming months is speculated, so if you can afford to wait, it’s probably a good idea.

We are also given a release date for the new devices – August 21st will be the date to watch out for. Expect details from other carriers to arrive in the coming weeks. Anybody making these Blackberry phones a day one purchase when they launch on Sprint?

The last we saw of the BlackBerry Torch 9850 / monaco was on a Sprint inventory sheet alongside the BlackBerry Bold 9930. While the BlakBerry Bold 9930 had a date at that time, the BlackBerry Torch did not. Now though, that inventory documentation appears to of have been updated and looking at the list now shows the BlackBerry Torch 9850 as arriving in 8/21/11. In some related information, we’ve also been hearing that the device most likely will turn up without those physical buttons we saw previously but that’s not 100%. Alas, dates can and often do change but we’ve got our fingers crossed.

If you’ve avoided loading up the previously leaked OS 6.0.0.407  onto your BlackBerry Style no need to worry about that now. Sprint, has made the OS an official release and is available for all to download. Hit the link and get your update on as soon as you can. Of course, if you have the leak already installed you can just ignore this and be on your way.

It looks like those Sprint Premier members who want to assure themselves a BlackBerry Style 9670  on launch day will be afforded that opportunity. Sprint has been sending out emails to its Premier customers with an option to pre-order the new BlackBerry flip-phone today; one day before the general public. Anyone out there going to scoop up RIM’s latest creation either today or tomorrow?

Note: We’re looking into why the email being sent out by Sprint says: “9760.”

One of our solid Sprint guys just shot us over this slide on the upcoming BlackBerry Oxford, the device we first showed the world, and the big news? A release date and price! Here is the breakdown: the BlackBerry Oxford (maybe “Style” wasn’t stylish enough?) is indeed a Sprint exclusive, and is set to launch on October 31st in the color Seattle  grey. There will be a purple model being released in the near future, or as Sprint likes to put it, it’s “coming soon”. The BlackBerry 6-powered flip device will run you only $99.99 with a two year agreement after $100 mail-in-rebate. Not a bad price for a 5 megapixel-toting, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi and GPS capable EV-DO Rev. A device, right? So let’s hear it — yay or nay on the Oxford, guys?

Today, Sprint announced that it too would carry the latest update to the BlackBerry Curve family, the Curve 3G. The specs of the device are identical to the handset available on a plethora of other carriers — 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, BlackBerry OS 5 , optical trackpad, BlackBerry 6 ready — but Sprint’s offering will be priced $20 higher than CDMA rival, Verizon Wireless, at $49.99 with a 2-year contract. The device will be available via Sprint’s direct sales channels on September 26th and via the remaining sales channels on October 10th.

Ah, a Tour owner’s dream. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 started life out as the BlackBerry Tour2. It then went through a late-stage metamorphosis and received a memory upgrade and name change for a couple of different reasons. One of the reasons is to utilize a positive product name RIM has built (the Bold line), and another would be to prevent hundreds of thousands of angry BlackBerry owners from practically taking over the entire city of Waterloo, Canada. You see, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 is what the Tour should have originally been, and by releasing a Tour2 under a year from the original device’s debut would be straight up insulting. RIM killed two birds with one stone by renaming the device to be a Bold, continuing a successful device brand, and also trying to not completely obliterate an existing handset (even though the Tour 9630 will certainly be end-of-life’d very, very quickly). So is the BlackBerry Bold 9650 the best in the biz? You’ll see soon enough, after the jump of course.

We have been playing with the BlackBerry 9650 on and off for a couple months, and now that we have an official unit from RIM and Sprint, we’re able to effectively judge the handset. Instead of doing a traditional review, we figured since the device really hasn’t changed so dramatically from the original BlackBerry Tour, we’d put our likes and dislikes into different sections.

Likes:

* Durable, solid construction and hardware.
* Great keyboard as always.
* Sounds great as a phone, great reception, perfect voice performance with calls.
* Much faster than the original Tour 9630, no real slowdowns or hangups in the OS, and a much speedier overall experience thanks to a newer and faster processor.
* Wi-Fi — obviously.

We love the solid hardware that RIM has been known for. It definitely shows in the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and it’s a real work powerhouse.

Dislikes:

* The raised trackpad, menu, send, BlackBerry, back keys (they are raised up beyond the keyboard and are a little too high).
* The terrible music speaker on the phone. It’s on the left side, and is a single speaker with a single opening in the case compared to 3 openings in the BlackBerry 9700 case. Sound sounds muffled, and the volume is pretty low. Overall, it’s kind of disappointing. Note: the speakerphone sounds great, we’re talking strictly about music/audio playback.
* The camera lens is still recessed so it can collect dust and isn’t cleaned easily. It would have been great for RIM to make the entire cover go over the camera lens so it would be flat and thus easily accessibly/wipeable.
* The phone is large in size and feels pretty outdated compared to sexier, even on carrier alternatives.

At the end of the day, this is what the BlackBerry Tour should have been. RIM’s hardware roadmap seems to be 1-2 years behind other mobile smartphone powerhouse manufacturers (that is being generous), and the BlackBerry Bold 9650 demonstrates this. The device is incredibly solid, but it’s overly large, especially when compared to a sleeker, sexier BlackBerry Bold 9700 sitting next to it. With phones that are pushing CPU speed barriers at 1GHz and beyond, RIM’s using an estimated 500MHz CPU here with 512MB of RAM and no internal storage. And that’s not exploring the truly ancient operating system that powers it.

The handset itself just straight up feels outdated. It’s a logical choice for a CDMA user, but we can’t help but feel like this device really doesn’t belong in a 2010 lineup. This is a great BlackBerry, and if email is your life, great. If not, there’s not too much we can say the BlackBerry 9650 offers over competitors on Sprint or Verizon. HTC’s EVO 4G and the HTC Droid Incredible (yes, they are two Android handsets) are miles ahead of this device, and unfortunately we’re not sure we’d recommend this handset over one of those except in extreme scenarios.